


Reunion

by possessed-bylight (free_pirate)



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, I got way too plotty and I'm sorry about that, I hope this is at least somewhat pleasing to you, M/M, or at least an attempt at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/free_pirate/pseuds/possessed-bylight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin and Fili return home from a smithing trip, and Fili decides never to leave Kili behind again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jynx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynx/gifts).



> My (belated) birthday fic for the lovely jynx. I hope this is okay? I tried, honestly I did. XD I hope you enjoy it, even if it's just a little bit.

There is only half a day’s travel when the sun goes down, but Thorin doesn’t mention stopping. Fili is grateful; he’s spent half a year away from his brother, smithing alongside his uncle in the towns of men. Half a year being sneered at and eyed with suspicion, looked down on by customers even as they came to the forge for repairs.

The air between he and Thorin is charged with the unspoken agreement to ride until they are safely home.

Though he would never say it aloud, Fili knows that his uncle is just as eager to get home as he is. To be around people who respected him instead of the open and senseless dislike only for their small statue came as something as a relief to the both of them, though at the moment Fili is more interested in seeing Kili.  

In a way, this venture was as much a lesson as anything. Thorin had often gone away and returned with enough coin to keep them fed through the winter, enough to share with the rest of his people, those without a marketable trade or lacking strong backs. He often went on these ventures with groups of other dwarrow, and they’d come trudging home twice a year only to give away what they’d spent so long earning.

When Thorin had suggested that Fili accompany him on this particular trip, he and Dis had a fight that nearly caved the roof in. Fili huddled in the room he shared with Kili, his brother sitting close enough for their thighs to press together as they listened to the argument.

He’d wanted to go, even sitting there with Kili pressed into him. Thorin put so much work into look after them after their father died that they were nearly  living luxuriously compared to the other dwarrow in town. Things were nowhere near as easy as they’d been in Erebor (Thorin told them tales, sang them songs before Dis tucked them into bed of their vast wealth, the home they’d never known where things would have been so much different for them), but they never had half of the hard times some of their playmates did.

He wanted to help in some way, now that he was old enough. Of course, he kept these thoughts to himself lest Kili get any ideas – no doubt he would anyway, and there was no sense adding fuel to the fire.

Now, as the lights of Ered Luin glow brighter the closer they ride, Fili can appreciate their little home and warm hearth all the more. Beside him, Thorin is silent as he often is. Fili gave up long ago trying to follow his uncle into his thoughts, for Thorin’s mind is a labyrinth of memories, guilt, and darker things, the worry of his people resting ever on his shoulders.

To keep himself occupied, Fili thinks of Kili. He wonders how much he’s grown (in the year before he’d left he’d already shot up nearly to the point of passing Fili in height), if he’s finally started to grow the beard he’d been complaining about. If the house was still standing or if Kili and their mother had managed to knock in down with one of their catastrophic fights.

It’s well past moonrise when they reach the outskirts of town. The ponies slow, tired from the long ride, and Fili pats his pony’s neck, urging her for just a little more. He thinks he can see their cottage on the other side of town, the lights doused and his mother and brother in bed for the night

As they ride up beside the house some time later, Thorin dismounts, tying his pony to a post outside the door. Fili does the same, anticipation making him almost giddy. He unloads his packs with half the care he usually would and slings them over his shoulder. Thorin cracks the door quietly and makes as little noise as possible on his way in.

There is a low fire burning in the hearth, enough to keep the chill off the night. It casts shadows around their main room, dancing off the wood-hewn chairs and tables that clutter the space.

There is a small sound off to the right, someone shuffling down the small hallway, and Thorin calls out a second before Dis comes hurtling around the corner with her late husband’s favorite battleaxe clutched tightly in her hands.

When she sees them, she lets it fall to the floor and rushes forward, throwing her arms around Fili and laughing into his hair. He holds her tight, relishing the comfort of his mother’s embrace for the few seconds before she lets go of him and turns to do the same to Thorin.

“I had no idea you were coming,” She says when she releases her brother, smoothing her hands over her nightdress and running her fingers through her hair. “I would have had a kettle on.”

Thorin laughs, a small sound, something Fili’s only heard rarely during their time away. It was only behind the closed door of their home that the stone-faced King faded and Thorin took his place, easier to laugh but no less stern or proud.

No matter how pleased Fili is to be home, no matter how much he wants to sit up with his uncle and his mother and trade stories of their time apart, it’s been a long ride and Fili is exhausted. His bags are heavy across his shoulders and away in the back of the house he can hear the soft, snuffling snores of his little brother, beckoning him like a clarion call.

He begs leave and drops his bags just out of the way in the main room, promising to sort them in the morning. Dis smiles and inclines her head at the gesture, rushes forward to hug him again before he disappears down the hallway. “It’s good to have you home,” she mutters into his ear as she lets him go, running her fingers along one of his disheveled braids.

The hall is dark, quiet, and the only sounds are the soft whisper of voices from the main rooms and Kili’s sleeping sounds. For a moment Fili only stands in the hallway, listening to the sounds of home descending around him, smiling widening as Kili snores.

Finally, when he can stand it no longer, he pushes open the door to their room quietly, finds Kili asleep in the wrong bed. Fili can’t stop the grin that splits his face, even tired as he is; he’d suspected as much and would have been more surprised if Kili had been sleeping in his own bed.

Nevertheless, he sheds his heavy layers slowly, quietly, though he knows it’s no use; Kili wouldn’t wake in an entire pack of goblins was invading their small home. Still, he is cautious, toeing off his boots and sliding them into their proper places by the window, laying his overcoats on the foot of Kili’s bed. It’ll be a job, cleaning up after himself tomorrow (and cleaning himself as well, if the smell of the layers he’s pulling off are any indication). As much as he wants to be clean there’s no point in doing tit tonight; the water would have to be drawn from the well and boiled, and he doesn’t have the energy.

He settles for using the cold water from the small basin by the window, running a wet rag over himself to clear away at least some of the dirt. By the time he crawls into his bed, braids undone and as clean as he’s going to get before morning, his shoulders are slumped with exhaustion and the sleepy sounds Kili is making don’t help at all.

His body automatically fits itself around where Kili is laying, the careless array of limbs and wild hair. He falls asleep with his ear over Kili’s heartbeat and one of Kili’s hands twitching its way onto his shoulder, though his brother never wakes.

In the morning, their positions have somehow reversed. Fili wakes first because he’s being smothered by hair, and Kili is still snoring away, resting completely on top of his brother with his head on Fili’s pillow. It takes a moment for Fili to remember that he’s home, and before he thinks too much on it he wraps his arms around his brother’s back, threading a hand through his hair and grinning into his shoulder.

This is home. This is what he’s missed so much, what he’s thought about every waking hour since he left. As he’s drifting back into sleep, unmindful of the full light of day creeping through the window, he can’t stop smiling.

The next time he is woken, it’s by a small surprised sound and Kili touching his face, his shoulders. Fili cracks an eye open and groans, tries to bury his face into his pillow again, but finds himself unable to put any real effort into it when Kili says, excited and too-cheerful for having just woken, “Fili, you’re home.”

If he were younger and Fili less exhausted, the way he is positively bouncing might be excusable. As it is, Fili groans and turns over, away from his bouncing brother, and curls back into his blankets. ‘Lemme sleep,” he mutters. Kili is not deterred, reaching around Fili and wrapping him up in his embrace like a many-legged creature and pressing his face into the nape of Fili’s neck.

“I’ve missed you,” Kili says, quieter this time, and Fili smiles, places one of his hands over the one Kili has slung across his chest. “Tell me of the towns of men.”

“Later,” Fili says, casting a glance over his shoulder and seeing only wild dark hair. “Let’s just lay here.”

They stay there for a long while, wrapped up in each other, sharing warmth. It’s got to be on its way to midday; the sun outside is overbright, and Fili is frankly surprised that Dis hasn’t come to rouse them yet. Perhaps she and Thorin were up until dawn talking. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But it hardly matters. He doesn’t care about the time, or about the saddlebags he swore he’d set right this morning. He only wants Kili to stay stretched around him like he is, for one of his feet to remain pressed between Kili’s calves. Perhaps next time Thorin wishes to take him, Kili will be old enough to go as well. Fili doesn’t know if he’d be able to stomach another half a year without Kili right there with him. 


End file.
